


Is Everyone a Hero?

by Quinny_Imp



Series: A Wolf and Three Crows [9]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Redcliffe (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 14:36:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18919006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinny_Imp/pseuds/Quinny_Imp
Summary: It’s another terrible night in Redcliff. Undead come from the castle, and murder the villagers. No one knows why, or how to stop them. But not everyone is willing to helplessly wait for them to leave in the morning.





	Is Everyone a Hero?

“What are you doing?!” Rakeen hissed. He threw a glance toward the window, making sure no one was lurking inside. He saw nothing but darkness marred only by flickering lights in windows of other cottages.

“What does it look like?” Allira replied calmly, checking the bowstring on her bow.

“Do you have any idea what kind of punishment this means?” Elves were not allowed to have any kind of weapons, and a bow definitely was a weapon. “I thought you got rid of it years ago!” He had no idea where she had hidden her bow. Their entire home was a just small round cottage that wasn’t even big enough for multiple rooms. Shelves mounted directly on walls, and furniture he’d made with his own hands, so no hidden compartments anyway.

His eyes went to Eeyo’s bed. It was low, covered by layers of soft blankets and skins that hung over it down to the floor. The bow could be placed under it. He felt a flush of anger: the deadly device, along with its dangerous arrows right under his child’s bed? Where the curious, filled with energy boy could find it, and try to play with it, and possibly hurt himself?

He stifled the feeling, knowing there was always time to argue about that later. Now he had to stop his wife from doing what he thought she was just about to do. He knew that she hadn’t taken her old weapon just for a show.

Allira waited for the noises from outside to die down a bit before answering. “It’s my hand-crafted bow. I’d never throw it away.”

“But–”

“Rakeen,” she said, approaching him, and gently putting a hand on his cheek. “Don’t worry. It’s all right. No one will know. Everybody is too busy trying to survive another night. They could even be grateful that I helped defending them.”

He looked at her beautiful face. Dark brown hair pulled back and braided – unevenly, as it had been Eeyo who helped her do that in the morning. Her _vallaslin_ complimenting the curves of her eyebrows and the shape of her cheeks. Sometimes he wondered why this forest goddess had agreed to leave her entire life behind, and live with him here in this Maker-forsaken village, barely making their ends meet.

Clearly, her wild Dalish nature called her now to fight and protect both her men: the big one and the little one.

“Elves, perhaps, but humans? Doubtful,” he said bitterly. “What do you intend to do?” he asked worried, putting his hand on top of hers.

“I can’t sit on my hands another night, _ma vhenan_ ,” she replied. “I _need_ to go and protect you. Both of you,” she added, mirroring his own thoughts. She glanced toward the bed in he corner of the room, on which slept their six-year-old son.

“I’d rather you stayed home. With us. Safe.”

“I’ll be back sooner than you can blink.” She kissed him, then kissed the sleeping boy, and left the house.

Rakeen sighed. She was never one to take things as they were. He loved her for that, but sometimes it drove him crazy.

“Daddy?”

He turned toward the thin voice, and went to give his son a hug. “Sleep, sweetheart, it’s very late.”

“I want water.”

The elf went to fetch a mug.

“Where’s mummy?”

For a second, he froze, not certain what to say. “Mummy will be back soon,” he said eventually. He returned to his son with water, and the boy drank it quickly. “Go back to sleep,” he said, and almost at the same time the noises outside got louder. Instead of laying back down in his little bed, the child dropped the empty mug, and clung to his father.

“Monsters!” he shouted.

“No, there are no such things as monsters,” Rakeen said, fully aware it was a lie.

Two nights earlier he’d had a chance to see what caused the noises, and it was not a nice view. It’d been half rotten, dirty, slow-moving, and looked a lot like a human or elf. Undead. Each night the village was under attack by undead. No one knew where they came from or why, but they returned each night.

He sat on the boy’s low bed. Eeyo crawled onto his lap, so he wrapped his arms around his son, and hugged him tightly. Rocking gently, he hummed a lullaby. He knew it wouldn’t put the child to sleep but he hoped it would calm him down. He could feel slight trembling of the small body in his arms. He wished so much he could take the fear away from his son. Eeyo didn’t even protest against the lullaby, as he did recently. ‘I’m not a baby any more!’ he usually insisted.

But not tonight.

One of the candles flickered and died, leaving the room darker. Eeyo whimpered.

“Shhh, it’s just a candle. It went to sleep now. You should too.”

The boy didn’t answer. He clung to his father, and it didn’t look like he would ever let go.

“When mummy comes back?” he asked after a while.

“Soon.”

He hoped.

He realised his eyes constantly went to the window each time the noises outside got louder, as if he expected something to crawl in. With shame he realised he wouldn’t be able to protect his son from whatever monstrosity it would be. He was not one who knew how to fight. He knew how to make tables and chairs, not kill those who were already dead.

He gently rubbed Eeyo's back, looking for comfort in his son’s presence. He could be untrained and not built to be a warrior, but he would sooner die than let anything, any monster, anyone dead or alive, hurt his little gem.

He wasn’t sure if worry, fear, or weariness made him imagine that the noises outside were louder or they truly were closer now. For a while he thought the boy on his lap finally fell asleep, but when something roared – it sounded like it was just by their little cottage – Eeyo whimpered again, and clung closer to his father.

“Daddy!”

“Shhh, shhh, they can’t get in here.” He hoped that was true. His heart raced, his imagination painted pictures of what was going on out there. Wet crunching sounds, roaring, screaming… Death. Pain. Terror.

He noticed a story book half-tucked under the pillow. “Do you want me to read you?” he asked Eeyo.

The boy replied by moving, but Rakeen couldn't tell if he’d shaken his head no, nodded for yes, or shrugged. He reached for the book anyway, opened it, and started reading aloud. Even if Eeyo didn’t want it, he needed it to calm his own nerves, to draw his own attention from the horrors taking place outside.

“Daddy, the halla speaks in the same voice as the bear,” Eeyo said.

“What? Oh, I’m sorry.” He realised he wasn’t really thinking about what he was reading, just saying the words out loud, while his thoughts were with his wife. Apparently, he stopped making different voices – as he usually did – for the characters as the result. “Maybe you should read it for me.”

The boy took the book, sat with his back leaning against his father’s chest, and started reading. Slowly, sometimes trying words several times, but Rakeen felt so much pride in how much the child had learnt since his mother started to teach him reading.

He listened to the thin voice, his eyes glued to the darkness behind the window. Where was Allira? If undead were shot with an arrow, did they finally die permanently or just got up to continue their invasion? Why were they coming here each night? Had someone offended the Maker, so He’d sent them as punishment? Was it the village? Or maybe the nobles in the castle, but the Maker punished all that belonged to them?

Something thumped outside, then hit the wall of their cottage, startling both the father and the son.

Eeyo started to cry. Rakeen rocked him in his arms, thinking that he was a brave boy. It had taken this long for him to cry. Brave little elf. He had it after his mother.

How could one calm down his child, if he was so terrified himself? Rakeen wondered.

Tears filled his own eyes, but mostly caused by the pain of seeing his precious little boy so scared, and the inability of doing anything about it. He thought he could understand why Allira had taken her bow, and had gone outside. She needed to do something about it, she needed it to stop. Her husband and child’s fear was not something she wanted to see, and it didn’t look like anyone else was trying to stop it. The castle was about its own business, the nobles not caring a fig about the people living in the village. Not the first time Rakeen wondered if it all was their doing. Or perhaps they were safe inside of their thick stone walls, so the undead unleashed on the defenceless villagers.

Eventually the noises died down.

Eeyo, tired of crying, fell asleep. Rakeen tucked him in his bed. His heart broke to tiny pieces, when he looked at his little round face all red and swollen from crying.

He went toward the window, scared of what he might see outside, but there was nothing unusual. No dead bodies. A few pots knocked over, and broken branches of a bush nearby, but no proof that something horrifying had taken place during the night.

He looked toward the village, waiting for his wife to return.

He waited.

The sun slowly rose, giving more light to the sky.

He waited.

Cheerful chirping of birds filled the warm air.

He waited.

His neighbour left his house and walked toward the village, where he worked.

He waited.

He waited.

He refused to walk away from the window.

He waited.

“Daddy,” Eeyo’s voice drew his attention. “I’m hungry.”

It was almost noon. The boy slept through most of the morning. No surprise he wanted to eat; it was long past the get-up time and breakfast.

“Where’s mummy?” he asked.

Rakeen’s knees finally gave under the brutal truth. He slid to the floor, and started crying.

**Author's Note:**

> Later that day two Grey Wardens and their companions – an Antivan assassin and an Orlesian spy –arrived in the village, and solved the undead problem. The arl’s son, who turned out to be a possessed apostate, was killed, and the village could finally find peace at night.


End file.
